Valentine
by Gender Outlaw
Summary: OneShot - "..why were her eyes wet if she wasn't crying?" RogueLance.


**Valentine.**

She couldn't speak.

She couldn't find the words to speak, so she just breathed. Small gasps of air escaped from between her lips, hard-pressed for a freedom. Her fingertips felt chilled, cold as winter, and she stretched on her toes to see above the crowd.

Some stranger brushed against her shoulder and her jacket was pulled back, exposing more of her shirt then she felt comfortable showing. She grabbed the hem and held the fabric tighter to herself.

Her ankles felt heavier than usual in her common boots. Her eyes blurred at the visual of bodies pressing and shoving, plowing against and through each other.

Her small chest drew larger and collapsed upon itself, lungs fighting tissue containing, restraining. She could feel her tongue pressing against her teeth and curled it under the thick gushes of wind moving against her throat.

He didn't see her.

Even with the hard tide waves of flesh moving on and around her she could see his shirt sleeves leaking from underneath his vest. There was some long mark on the length of his back, probably a fold in the denim, that she caught a glimpse of with a heartbeat break in the crowd.

He probably didn't brush his hair today, still as straggly and gnarled as it was the day before, that same soft clump of hair jumping out away from his skull.

She tilted her head, feeling her hair brush her own ears. Some strand found isolation in the dark shadows her fragile flesh confined. It itched the back of her ear but she didn't remove it, just turned in the other direction and let her other ear suffer the same fate, never altering her gaze.

His elbows were dirty. It wasn't the simple dark aging of youthful skin, some form of dirt streaked across his elbows and died on the backs of his arms.

She noticed him in the Garage yesterday but he didn't see her there either. She had hid in a back room, opening some unmarked faded door and stepping through before even she was granted time for any other thought. She had only to stay there for ten minutes but she spent the rest of the day there, undisturbed.

The same streams of light that had passed the dusty old windows were falling next to him now. He stepped in one and almost unconciously, as if he could sense the disturbance, he stepped out.

He was wearing thin boots today. She remembered him having a much larger and heavier pair. The unpolished leather wrinkled like her mother's forehead and an unfastened buckle clinked on the tiled floor.

She didn't breath out, gathering more and more air inside herself that escaped almost like a yawn. It was warm today.

The trees were almost already green, great clumps of thin fabric nature had spread upon the dead-like branches she had resisted tearing apart all winter. She wanted to snap every cold dark limb that had stared at her from her bedroom window, no matter how solid the trunks or roots.

Long, narrow, cubicle like frames of glass high above her were nestled in the wall. One patch of light drowned on the heads swirling around her, she was getting dizzy again watching any one current in the wide wave.

One patch feel next to her again, same as in that room. That small and dusty, empty-shelved room where she leaned against the door and sat her knees on the uneven concrete. The high windows there were mostly too dirty to let any light through, she was feeling very cold, isolated.

In that room, she didn't have her thick coat to cover her shoulders and watched her breath stir long trendils of white air from the walls, from the floor, from the shelves. She could feel the wind from the other room's air conditioner kissing the inside of her knees, over the protective nylon.

It had rained all morning, the largest downpour dropping heavy on her windsheild and almost pulling her wipers straight off the glass. All she could see was one solid sheet of white blurred by the flow of liquid attacking her car. It sounded like an army of four-inched figurines pounding pounding hammering at her protective metal barrier.

She landed on top.

She was driving a small car, and the headlights probably should have been replaced a few months ago. She had been down this road before, only turning just now because the largest and darkest clouds were on the other side of the horizon.

When she hit the Bug of vehicle resting under stoplight she didn't even get a chance to grope for the brakes. She was just lifted up and over, both of them flying across the road and earning a warning honk from a car in the neighboring lane.

She landed on top of other car, staring down out of her windsheild at the solid clouds impassively raining even heavier.

Everything had felt heavy.

She must have passed his house in that drama because he was knocking on her window. He tapped his fist hard harder harder against the pane of glass, was it still raining, yelling at her yelling swearing, why were her eyes wet if she wasn't crying?

Somebody pulled her from under the pressure of manufactured seat fabric and smooth plastic-like metal. She couldn't focus her eyes why did her head hurt so? she couldn't see straight she was outside it wasn't raining why were her eyes blurring?

He touched her shoulder and she screamed. She screamed at him, white shirts picked up her knees and lifted her above the ground, it was like flying, falling up.

He stared at her as the doors closed, the van doors closed, the truck doors closed. She could still see him through the square windows in the rear of the vehicle in front of her, but she couldn't hear.

He was saying something, his lips moving but no sound assaulting her ears except for the steady drum of voices touching her flesh with pale gloves. She responded, eyes tightened and lips lined, without letting any air escape from her mouth.

The ambulance only made her stay for a few hours that morning.

She hated the pale solid colors of the walls in that horrid rancid building. The pure and untouched, sterile scent that reminded her so much of herself.

Her car had been sent to the Garage.

She walked there, taking the shortcut through the alley behind the bakery stepping as lightly as her feet would allow around the cardboard boxes emitting soft baby like sounds, inconsistent 'mew's. She entered the Garage through a side door.

He was standing at the counter.

He had been there much longer than her, long enough to wander around the entire room. The instance her nose caught the scent of his sweat, his heavy sweat, she fled grabbing the faded yellow doorknob and twisting it in two directions quick enough to be an execution.

The building had great airconditioning, even the isolated room she had been kneeling in felt the cool. Trying hard not to cough, his voice was whispering at the back of her mind when the clouds broke.

Broke in front of just one window. The stream of light fell through the layers of dust built over the years on the yellowed glass frame and fell not a foot from where she was. She could see his scent in the lightened area.

She could still smell his sweat, his hands squeezing her shoulder grabbing the frame of her bone with the tips of his fingers and his nose brushing against the back of her head blowing strands of hair aside with his breath.

She scraped her knees pulling herself into a sitting position over where that one strand of light fell.

She had stayed there the rest of the day in that small room concentrating on her breathing and ignoring the thoughts gradually building against her in the back of her brain. She didn't tell anyone about her day, arriving home in time for dinner and a bath.

The next day she went to school.

He was standing in front of her locker, his black shirt out of place in the bright day flowing through the high placed winds and the crowds moving against the tiles like the same flash of water that assaulted her car.

She bit her lip. He turned to the side. She could see the profile of his sharp nose and sunken eyes. She stood on the opposite side of the hall with her back against the cold surface of the wall.

One patch of light from the windows high above fell right by her. She stared at it, directly placed in front of her, in front of him, in front of her locker.

Round tame and uneven splash of light, bright golden yellow, brighter than it had been the day before.

He stood taller, his shoulders lifted up and back, she spotted his chin several times from against the throng of bodies blocking her view.

Her fingertips ached and she stepped forward, moving lighter on her left foot. She hesitated in the patch of light, pure white heated air falling and moving all around her she was in a circle a square a triangle a corner of unviewed perfection untouched nobody bumped into her.

She looked up.

He was right in front of her.

The waves crashed and thrashed around her. She could reach out to him and touch his shirt. She saw the hem of his sleeve twisted upon itself and she wanted to untie it, to free it, to fix it.

He turned in her direction.

His eyes were so large and deep, she glimpsed the warm mountains she had climbed in her youth father south than what she was now. She had spent hours running up and down those mountains.

He lifted his arm up and grabbed her arm, pulling her close to him.

And as Lance kissed Kitty, Rogue could only watch alone, isolated in the patch of light. He held the pink girl tight and licked her faint lips lightly and she giggled.

And Rogue could only watch alone, isolated in the patch of light, no sounds escaping from her lips except the shallow sounds of her breaths. Her shoulders slumped down in the heat from the window and the crowd moved around her, nobody bumping into her, or breaking her circle.


End file.
